Alia-Ranveer, Deepika-Ranbir. People always talk of the chemistry between a lead pair. Sometimes, an actor and a director also get attention. Ajay Devgn and Rohit Shetty have action dads and a passion for making movies in common, their Singham and Golmaal franchises cementing their partnership. Amitabh Bachchan had an understanding with Prakash Mehra and Manmohan Desai. After Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, Karan Johar-SRK became a blockbuster pair.

Emraan Hashmi with Mahesh and Mukesh Bhatt was another recognised equation. With memorable music and carefully budgeted movies like Murder (2004) that made four times the investment, the uncles made an actor out of nephew Emraan, who didn’t grow up dreaming of an acting career.

Mahesh and Mukesh’s acrimonious split coincided with Emraan beginning to experiment with more than kissing and conning, which had become his speciality.

But he floundered for a while. Ungli (2014) and Selfiee (2023) for Dharma Productions failed. His third with them, the OTT show Showtime (2024), did not draw much notice. Yashraj’s big-ticket Salman Khan film Tiger 3 (2023), with which Emraan turned full-fledged antagonist, was the weakest in the franchise. Other attempts, like the real-life story of a heroic BSF officer posted in Kashmir, didn’t play out well when Ground Zero (2025) also scored a zero.

But Emraan has staying power and got singled out for attention when he played himself with trademark cheekiness in Aryan Khan’s The Ba***ds of Bollywood. Most would credit SRK or Aryan for casting Emraan but here’s an equation that often goes unnoticed — the friendship between an actor and a writer. In this case, young Bilal Siddiqui.

Emraan had released Bilal’s first thriller Bard of Blood in 2015. Bilal was then barely 20 years old and an intern of sorts with gangster specialist Hussain Zaidi, the writer behind Anurag Kashyap’s Black Friday, Sanjay Gupta’s Shootout at Wadala and OTT shows Scoop and Bambai Meri Jaan.

Four years later, when Bard of Blood took off as a web series, SRK’s Red Chillies backed it for Netflix with Bilal as writer. It took the Emraan-Bilal professional relationship ahead. So, when Bilal co-wrote The Ba***ds of Bollywood with Aryan, finding Emraan in a well-written cameo was no surprise. That show has been followed by the writer and actor working together on Awarapan 2, which is currently being shot in Bangkok.

The original Awarapan (2007) was produced by Mahesh- Mukesh and directed by another nephew, Mohit Suri who, by the way, is not helming the sequel. These days, Suri is better known as the wiz behind YRF’s Saiyaara.

An uncredited rip-off of the Korean film A Bittersweet Life, Awarapan had credited Honey Irani for the story and Mahesh Bhatt’s favourite Shagufta Rafique for the writing. It did underwhelming business in India but made some money in Pakistan. Overall, the Bhatts did profit from it. Since their films were made under Vishesh Films, the banner named after Mukesh’s son, when the brothers split, the titles went to canny Mukesh.

It’s cost-conscious Mukesh who is making Awarapan 2. With the Emraan-Bilal team working on it, perhaps the sequel will reflect a departure from the tired Bhatt formula.

Never overlook the contribution of a writer to an actor’s career. Having Salim-Javed in his corner had greatly benefited Amitabh Bachchan when they got together on blockbusters like Deewaar, Sholay and Trishul.

Incidentally, wonder why Javed Akhtar recently spoke of AB being the perfect fit when they wrote Zanjeer. It’s well known that Zanjeer was offered to and rejected by heroes like Raaj Kumar and Dev Anand. AB was almost the last choice for Zanjeer. His superstardom did begin with Zanjeer but it was luck by chance. Zanjeer was certainly not written by Salim-Javed for AB.

Bharathi S. Pradhan is a senior journalist and an author